It is clear that the One who performed the first creation is the same One who repeated it in Bethany.

Nothing needs to be added to the creative work Jesus performed in Bethany to complete the picture of the Creator in our minds. Anything one might imagine about the work of the Creator when He formed man was given physical expression as Jesus passed through Bethany, bringing Lazarus back to life. In this one act, Jesus reunited the spirit, soul and body of a totally expired man.

John tells us in the eleventh chapter of his gospel that Jesus carefully planned to be in Bethany at a time when everyone thought there was no possibility they would ever see Lazarus. When Jesus arrived, Lazarus’ buried body had been dead four days.

Jesus is the One who places opportunities in our life, and He is the One who has established the laws and principles that govern them. He offers new opportunities in a land of no opportunities. He is able to work against the progress of the most difficult laws of life. He’s the One who possesses an ancient creative thought and who sees opportunities to create a living body from the dust like He did with Adam. It’s not surprising that Jesus recognized an opportunity to raise a new, powerful, living body for Lazarus when He saw the dust to which Lazarus had been reduced .

The glory characteristic of our Creator is to be seen in the descent of the Creator to create opportunities for creative work in the sphere where we are seen to fail most, where we leave our dearest hopes buried without recall, where the ruins of spiritual and moral dissolution of our dearest friends and loved ones are to be seen, the place where nobody expects anything further to happen, since everything has disappeared into the soil without trace.

When life looks so depressing, something wonderful happens. When no opportunity exists or hope remains, Jesus tells His followers to move toward Lazarus’ body, something in which no one finds any further value. It’s in this arena where Jesus shows Himself to be the Creator of life and the establisher of its opportunities.

Consider the angels who visited our earth. They didn’t sit by the tombs, but they visited the living. It wasn’t within their power to bring a buried person out from a tomb and reverse poor humanity’s curse of death and dissolution. Angels don’t possess the power to determine the destiny of creatures or govern what has been established for mankind because of sin.

The only one who can change an eternal principle is the one who established and programmed that principle in the first place. To control human destiny one must have authority to legislate the principles and laws to which man has been subjected. Only God can undo the curse and release man from its effects.

The only person who has the prerogative to pardon a criminal is the king or the president of a nation. Likewise, only God can undo the curse of sin and reverse the fate held in store for our bodies once they have died. When a body has been changed into dust, only God can release it from the sentence brought about by original sin and passed upon the whole human race.